Cookbooks arrive, unbidden, on my doorstep all the time. While I’m grateful to the publishers, I wind up writing about very few. But earlier this year, New Hope-based Burgess Lea Press tucked a copy of the new Latin cookbook Mi Comida Latina into a package containing my review copy of the Agricola Cookbook. It immediately captured my attention.
Each of the book’s 100 traditional, home-based recipes—which author Marcella Kriebel, 30, recorded in a personal journal during her travels through Latin America as an anthropology student—is hand-illustrated and hand-lettered by her. It turns out she is also a talented watercolorist.
Every page of Mi Comida Latina ($30), which enjoyed initial success as a Kickstarter project, uniquely presents a recipe Kriebel gleaned from home cooks in kitchens in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Puerto Rico.
I was delighted to learn that its DC-based author will visit the Stockton Market this Sunday, October 11. From 10 am to 1 pm she’ll sign copies and serve samples of dishes from her beautiful book (see photo).
But wait—there’s even more to like!
Burgess Lea specializes in books on chefs, restaurants, and farms, and donates all its after-tax profits to organizations that address hunger, farmland preservation, culinary education and other important food-related issues.
For each book, the author and the publisher jointly select an organization to donate to. For Mi Comida Latina that will be Adelante Mujeres, a non-profit that empowers low-income Latinas and their families in Kriebel’s home state of Oregon.